It’s hard to justify the enjoyment of music, movies, or even just spending time with friends during the cacophony that is engulfing the world. I’m not saying that what occurs in the USA, matters in the day to day of the rest of the world. It seems though that a chord has been struck that has reverberated around.

From the murder of a man by the police. Are the police always to blame? No, but this is the shock value of a death that happens quickly, not the death of a thousand cuts. This just goes back further … let me share this little picture, taken from Babynames.com on 06.19.20:

This, this is not everyone.

There is so much proof around us, racism was baked into this country. We need to change it, and we need to care about one another. We need to lift everyone up, and tear down symbols of hate. Which includes statues of the confederacy because guess what, they lost … I’m sorry was that a spoiler?

Guess what, the Confederacy lost … tear down the fucking statues and throw the confederate flags into a hole. The majority of those statues were put up in the Jim Crow era. If you don’t believe me, well then, how about this. Do you believe in the show Ancient Aliens, then here is an article from the History Channel – https://www.history.com/news/how-the-u-s-got-so-many-confederate-monuments.

Exploding racism, with pandemic that is being ignored/swept under the rug by the executive branch of the government. They had time and chances to prepare, they didn’t. Right now you have a child that is not taking blame.

All of this is coming to a head, is it good or bad? Doesn’t matter, it is what it is and it needs to be addressed. When a person tells you that they are a shit person, beleive them. Trump has shown that from day one. This November, vote. Use all of this to rage to fuel progress and a want to be better, so that we are all better. Make sure you are registered and vote, every November. It’s not just the President that matters, so does every single seat in our city council.

It’s late night and I always seem to put together a blog post right before I go to bed. Heh, I need to change some habits it seems. I’ve been thinking about everything that is going on right now in the world. We still have a pandemic and protesting on top of it. Take a look of ratio to those protesting now to those protesting for the states to reopen, I think you might start getting an understanding of what matters and to who.

I was planning on writing a blog to talk about the amount of fun and the self realizations I had this past weekend at the Nebula awards. That can wait.

I wanted to talk about a “quest” that was given to a friend, and the reward that she will receive. It’s really kind of neat, but this to will wait.

I am so unhappy with the way the world is, and why it’s like this. We need to care for each other, have empathy, and stop the brutality.

I would like to be more elegant and write something that goes into depth and meaning to show how much this is hurting us all. But I am a level 30-something human, while only being a level 1-2 writer. There are writers that have been strining words and emotin togethor longer then I’ve breathed.

Each writer before me, each one, has imbued emotion, politics, and ways of life into their works. To make a difference and show a point of view different then your own. It’s from reading and creating that we learn to be empathetic to others. Point blank, it’s how we learn.

I will write today, I will write tomorrow, and I will keep writing so that I can level up and be able to share stories that will help, will heal, and will make others think. We need to be better, all of us can so much more to be better.

Disclaimer/edit – I wrote this at the end of the day. My internal editor was already asleep, so I’ll keep the misspelled words and bad grammar, using them as a benchmark.

Hey, i’m listening to the Nebula stories being read out loud. It’s pretty neat.

And back to work.

It’s late and I just finished putting an inordinate amount of time on a project that I have not felt the need to do in years. I have not really cared or worried about the time that has passed or felt that the pure joy from embarking on this project would bring me. Yes, the joy of playing a video game. If you say that playing the game was not a worthwhile project, then we go to the Merriam-Webster’s definition and have entry – A planned undertaking: such as a definitely formulated piece of research.

So there we go, I was doing research for story telling. How do you take a game … legacy at this point, and Remake it ie: to make anew or in a different form.

Assuming that everyone who saw the Remake title, myself included, would think “ohh, it’s different, the same with some updates.” That’s not it. This is taking a legacy and doing so much more to it.

Those originally involved stated that they would never touch the story unless they could make it better and I believe that they’re well on their way. I’m not a reviewer, I’m not going to say anything about the technics, the details that a reviewer needs to look at to say that a game gets so many of the cherished stars, or if hard earned money should be invested.

This game made me cry for the beauty, the sorrow and tragedy that unfolds. Anger for the way that pixels are treated and gasp from a few different lines, lines delivered by secondary characters; throw-away characters.

I’m not going to spoil the game, i’m just going to say that it’s good, well worth spending both time and money on. Like any good project.

I wasn’t sure about buying this and investing the time. But, I find myself home alone and with the non-working hours that I usually put, detrimentally, zoning out on Twitter now gone; let it be known that a hiatus will assuredly have you recalculating your personal time in different ways.

We have all tried to do our part to flatten the curve and make sure that we are all going to come out of this healthier. To do this, everyone to a point, is social distancing. I’m not going to touch on that more then I already have at this point. No, what I want to talk about is what I want to get out of this entire period.

This is a pause in everyone’s life and plans. This was predicted and not properly addressed, but since I have been stuck at home for the past 3 weeks … Place of work only made it mandatory for all facilities to work from home effective 3.20.20. I have still been out and about helping those I can, but I also need to help myself. I am working from home, but I also find myself with more time to potentially focus and work on projects. Yet, yet I am still focusing on social media.

I have stayed well away from the news, unintentionally, but hey it works. I am at this point though, going to go extreme in social distancing. I am going to take time away from Twitter and from Instagram. If anything is posted to Twitter, then it came from this blog, which will also be worked on at this time. I want to come out of this stay at home, with a better understanding, of what, well that’s for me to know.

So, if anyone needs to contact me, then send something through the blog, email, or this funky thing called a cell number.

Take care and stay safe.

As the title speaks of, this is indeed a post about protection. Soldier! Raise that shield higher, you are not protecting yourself but those next to you. In turn they are protecting you.

Okay, maybe that might be a little overbearing, but I think you might know where I’m coming from? This has a been a weird couple of years for me. Last year was tumultuous on an emotional level and this year, well for everyone, a financial level. We are all learning that the safety nets that we believed in and knew in our “hearts” would never fail. Well, they’re failing. Every net is delicate, right now, there are people that have every wish to cut the nets, even going against specialist that say it’s stupid to do so. Everyone will be affected by this, how we come out on the other end, could be, or damn well will be, a clarion call. I can’t see the future so, at this time, i’ll talk about other things.

In pertaining to the actual title of this blog, and the first sentence, we are trying to flatten the curve to protect. In doing so, as John Scalzi put it, this is the Great Pause. Which, honestly, can be a good thing. This is stressful, please do not misunderstand. I feel for every person that is out on the front lines combating this and doing what they can to support the oaths that they have taken for society. I am not that soldier on the front line, I am someone at home. I’m trying to create habits at home that I can take with me when we are out of this to be more productive. I am trying to better myself, by staying home and doing what I can to learn. By being a person that is staying at home, I am not that front line soldier, but I very well might be the person a few ranks back. Those on the front lines, they should be the medical and the politicians making the decisions to help and soothe worry. Those at the forefront should specifically be those that have taken oaths to protect and serve society.

What we have though is, well, not that.

Maybe this is even a bad example. I am not trying to lionize or laud the military or militarization, but instead to point out parallels that might make sense. I was also going to start this blog post with another reference that was just funny. That reference though, may be in poor taste, or might need to be in a different blog.

Instead, let me tell a little story.

I was young and innocent once … cough cough … ahem. Anyways. I grew up in Michigan, specifically, this is a story from when I was quite young, before I was 10. My grandma, a kind and caring woman, lived in Flint. It may not have been the nicest neighborhood, and there were bars on neighbor’s windows, but I was a child and I played in the yard. Was it rough, yes, but I never saw it within the context of bad. That being said … this was Flint. It’s possible that this was one of the rougher neighborhoods, cleaned up by the time I traipsed through with my grandmother.

This story specifically was a time when my grandma watched a cousin and myself. Like any grandma, she loved to spoil us, as grandmas are wanton to do. Every so often she was walk us down a few blocks to a penny candy store. That’s not hyperbolic kids, the candy was cheap. This place had the cheaper items out, the expensive stuff, and the cash register, behind a counter to ceiling inch thick Plexiglas wall. It’s possible this was a corner store, but they had cheap candy and the entire room was covered. You walked in and it was just an aisle that went six feet up to the counter and a spot where you paid. Maybe the Plexiglas was a reminder from that bygone era, maybe it was still a “just in case.” I didn’t care, I was a kid enjoying sugar.

Why bring up a story from my childhood? I forgot about this place, I was there maybe twice. It made enough of an impression though and I was reminded about it today. Ironically, or sad, the reminder came from Costco. Costco, is doing right by their employees. They are a company that is necessary and every person that works there maintains it. If anything, this entire period has shown how important it is to care for those that society has deemed menial. They are the ones that make sure this economy doesn’t crash. They are the ones that are 3 ranks back, interlocking shields to make sure that you can buy meat, pharmaceuticals, and gas for your car.

I apologize for my digression. Why does Costco bring back this memory? They have put up a Plexiglas barricade between their employee and the customer. That barricade also has a cutout for a card reader and a place to hand the customer a receipt. The interaction is negligible, where it needs to be to protect the workers. From midway on the register, it completely shields the employee. Sadly it reminded me of that Plexiglas barricade from my childhood, one meant to protect a worker, an owner, a father, a mother, family.

I was at another store 2 weeks ago, they had the acrylic shields up as well, but it never caused a correlation. To me, these ones, they don’t do the job to protect. This was just a sheet, wide and stupidly tall. It covers a very specific part of the register and the cashier, but only when standing in a specific spot. When the cashier goes to bag or hands a customer the receipt, there is no protection, there is no shield.

As it stands, I try to stay home. I try to make sure that the little bit of acrylic that is supposed to protect the cashier is superfluous. I’m not the only one though that needs to stay home we all do. Maybe, hopefully, we lower the curve and within a few months, those shields can come down

How you write is not how I write, or even how a third person may write. We all make this journey differently, mine is a slow hesitant typing that stops, starts, and stops again before forcing my concious to continue. Ohh hey, a new Youtube video … that cat is adorable. Anyways, my writing habit is not ideal, which is an understatement. I would like to cultivate a better habit since this is unproductive. But to force oneself to sit in front of a computer and type out each symbol, each word; typing can be lonesome and exhausting. At the same time, writing can be cathartic, to let the ideas percolate within the brain and type out words and concepts that bring both the writer and reader to view and learn about the world differently.  Words written, words read, they can come together to make a puzzle piece, sometimes that piece will match up to the reader and bring them joy and sometimes the piece will no longer fit. But, at one point, the words of a writer bridged a gap and resonated. 

You may only write for yourself, you may be writing for friends, and then you might be writing to be published. If writing to be published is your goal, then I hope you get published; the inexhaustible maw of readers is there and ever consuming. I ask that you write well, put your heart and brain into the work. From what I have seen though, it can be a storm filled life, but also a life full of possibilities and friendships beyond a page. 

I look to write, to make good stories, this is the goal that I would like to focus on. In the past I focused on writing, yet they were not stories, no, these were words put down for a blog that I cultivated in my late teens and early 20s. I tried to give each of the blog a point, in my ignorance or “mysterious” ways, well, those points flopped by trying to be elusive and keep from pointing a finger or making a large neon sign. I let words flow, circle like a vortex that endlessly spun and obfuscated. The words were never meant to hold up against time or bare my soul, truthfully it was more akin to screaming into the void, and there were times that the void screamed back “keep it down.”   

Even if the blog was not quite what I expected, it did give me words on a page which is something. Words on a page reminds me though of the million words saying, which has multiple iterations – you have to write a million words before you’re good; you need to write a million words of crap; style only comes out once you’ve hit a million words. An interesting saying as they all go, if only because it signifies a milestone that a writer can reach for. Finding out your style or voice at a million words though, it feels wrong. 

I pushback on this statement, It’s not about reaching a million or more, it’s about the journey in being a writer. It’s about your depth of knowledge expanding, honing your skills, and growing beyond what you thought you were originally capable of. Maybe that is all it’s missing, the clarification. Write a million words, publish said words, and hey you now have a book and you’re an author to boot. If you self publish, did anyone look at your story, did anyone comment on pacing, the words, the content, the understanding? Before it was published did you question how it was coming across? Was feedback asked for, given, and paid attention to? THese are general statements meant to garner thought and question the work. Not question like why you are writing, but could it be better or do the peers that have come before me have suggestions that you can learn from?

A writer can produce the same type or combination of words, day after day, and still be writing the exact same things. If they put a million words down like that, did they grow? Sure they might have a published book, but what are you actually getting out of it? How does this book even speak to others? Putting your ass in the chair and producing the words is just a first step. The next step is reviewing, critiquing, and cutting into every single word, subject, and scene. As I said a million words can be a good goal, but just words alone does not make a person an accomplished writer. 

This piece has been typed, retyped, and cut so many times before you, the reader, will have seen it. For the simler reason that it sucked before I even reviewed or edited it to begin with. Is this a good blog or coherent? Maybe not as much as it could be. I do know that the blogs I wrote in the past, pale to how much effort and thought that has gone into this document. Have I written a million words? I don’t know, nor do I care. To reiterate, I can write a million words and still produce utter crap, what matters is the lessons I’ve learned, the failures that I’ve endured, and the skills I’ve picked up from peers and readings.  

I already know some things that I’ve failed at, those failures have made me a better person and given me new skills to hone. The milestones before me and the achievements behind me, they hone me into being a better writer and person … but again, it’s the culmination of all of it, not just typing words on a page.